SHABA opens today

The Sacred Heart Alumni Basketball Association (SHABA) Basketball Tournament formally opens 1 p.m. today at the Sacred Heart School-Jesuit gymnasium.

Before the action starts, the event will have its formal opening as well as the selection of the best muse among the 14 competing teams.

Officials of Sacred Heart School-Jesuits and the officers of SHABA are expected to be in full force for the opening day.

A demonstration of skills from the current varsity and training pool members will also be presented during the opening ceremonies.

This will be the first time that the school's varsity players will be taking part in the SHABA activity, according to its commissioner Hermogenes Anciado.

Aside from the demonstration, the Jesuit's current varsity players will be playing against one of the competing teams in SHABA, the MTO'2005 in an exhibition game.

At the half of the exhibition games, follow the game proper in the two other courts.

A total of six games will be featured in the opening day.

Defending champion Dunkin Donuts/Gillamac'97 will take on the younger Stanford Lab/Worldwide Steel'99 in its first assignment.

Newcomer San Miguel '06, on the other hand, will be debuting against Chivas Regal'96 while the returning Hyundai '94 tackles the combined efforts of Batch '97 and 2002 under the Crazy Dragons.

Also set to play today are Borplus Pipes'91-92-93 versus Kenya'03, GEF/Koppel against K1 Family KTV and Bimoli Cooking Oil opposite Petron Gothong'95.

This year's event, set every Thursdays and Sundays, will follow a single-round robin format with the top eight going into the quarter-finals and the top four entering to the semi-final round. The final action will be a best-of-three games.